Late for Your Life (Mary Chapin Carpenter)

My husband and I had tickets to see Mary Chapin Carpenter and Shawn Colvin this Sunday, April 5 (emphasis on had).  They are best friends, and I was so looking forward to seeing and hearing them swap stories, songs, and jokes.  I can wait...  :-)

We all know that concerts in real-life have been put on temporary hold and, in the meantime, many musical artists are offering up livestream shows instead.  What a lovely way to provide solace, therapy, and uplift.

Singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter has launched a new online music series called “Songs From Home.” Although she’s practicing social distancing by performing solo from her kitchen in Virginia, Carpenter’s debut episode finds her joined by a special guest, her dog (and “co-producer”) Angus, who wanders in and out of frame, variously staring out the kitchen window, offering his affection, and gnawing on a bone as Carpenter sings “Edinburgh.”

There are four more episodes, which you can find if you Google Songs From Home and Mary Chapin Carpenter.  Enjoy!  

To quote MCC:  Stay mighty.  Stay at home.

P.S.  I haven't requested reimbursement for my tickets yet, hoping the show will be rescheduled.  Not to be missed...  :-)



SONG:  Late for Your Life by Mary Chapin Carpenter

BOOK:  You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay

POEM:  spring again by Jesus Papoleto Melendez (Susan's note:  the format is exactly how it appeared in print...  :-)

spring came /
the same way winter left
& summer will come
& summer will leave;        slowly
          / when no one's expecting it
             when people are tired of waiting

like waiting for welfare checks /
          a long wait/             a slow wait

the windows are open
but butterflies don't fly in
to display a sense of love

           / only housefly enter
              to sit on food       & eat crumbs

& dreams escape /
& become stolen      & lost      & used
& wasted        & thrown away
& dreamed anew

the junkies sit on the stoop
& nod themselves into dreams
            / maybe into the ones which escaped
& stinkball is played
& on warm nights        the ghetto musicians play
our ghetto song
on garbage can tops         & bang on empty coke bottles
& sound real chévere

:tomorrow
the junkies will sit on the stoop
& nod themselves into dreams /
stickball will be played /
                                             the streets will become chalked
                                             with 1st and 2nd & 3rd bases

hop scotch will become a game
& tops will spin on sidewalks /

& everyone will anticipate summer.

QUOTE:  "We want to get this good music to as many people as possible because I think it heals, it soothes, I think music is incredibly important, especially in today's chaos." ~ Graham Nash

This Too Shall Pass (Danny Schmidt)

I found out today that over the weekend, a good friend was, as Tracy said of Dave, "riding that thin chiffon wave between here and gone" - below are my skyward wishes and positive thoughts for his full recovery...

SONG: This Too Shall Pass by Danny Schmidt

BOOK: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

POEM: Something Else by Christian Barter

I know a woman who calls me
every week or so when she has something
on her mind and starts by saying,
"I have something to talk about
but let's start by talking about
something else." It helps her get it out.
So I ask her how she is and she says
okay and tells me about some poet
or politician she's met and how
he wasn't at all what she expected
or about the DC weather,
the traffic jams, the dirty Metro.
Sometimes she never gets around to her point
at all, but ends by saying,
"Now I don't want to talk about it
anymore." Last week I had a fever
for four days and the world
took on a kind of flickering darkness—
it seemed so thin, so insubstantial,
not the kind of place a person could live.
This guy who came to the card game
last night, he says he dreams
of a dead friend all the time,
this friend walks out of a black alley,
walks always in a kind of shadow.
I asked him what it's like to be dead,
the guy said, fumbling a face-down card,
and he said it's not a place, heaven,
it's a feeling, the feeling of knowing
everything you never knew. Then the friend
told him one of the numbers to play
this week in Megabucks. Sometimes, though,
she does get around to what's on her mind—
a sadness for her little sister, killed
in a wreck, or a fear that we
won't see each other again, won't ever
feel whatever that was we felt when we
were making love. I don't know if we will.
I don't know if she will ever see
her little sister again except in dreams,
which is somewhere, I guess.
The number was eight.

QUOTE: "When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief or bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares." ~ Henri Nouwen